Color Spot Printing & Graphics

Whatis a font?  Seems like a silly question. Anyone who uses a computer chooses one regularly.  In fact, the term has become ingrained as part of our vernacular.  However, if you think about the word “font”, what does it mean and what does it REALLY pertain to?

The term font (a cognate of the word fondue) is derived from Middle French fonte, meaning “something that has been melted”, referring to type produced by casting molten metal at a type foundry.  For centuries, molten metal was used for casting individual alphabet characters or symbols.  A process made historically significant by Johannes Gutenberg who, in the 15th century, printed 200 copies of the Bible.

In a more modern era, a font can be understood as a complete character set of a single size of a particular typeface. For example, the set of all characters for 12 point Helvetica is a font, and the 10 point size would be another font and the 10 point size shown in italics would be yet another font.

And if we fast forward just a little more, with the introduction of personal computers, an even broader definition has evolved where the word font has become a synonym for typeface.  Confusing?  Yes.  Part of this comes from incorrect use of terms and names which have been generically accepted simply out of ignorance.  But if you keep reading, you just might learn enough to be a worthy contestant on Jeopardy.

“Answer: In common usage, this refers to any digital typeface that can normally be rendered in a variety of sizes.”

“Question: What is a font?”

If it were only that simple….  Well, to begin there are 4 major classifications that make up what modern civilization commonly calls a “font.”  However, in the professional typography realm, what you are really referring to is typeface (try to remember that one for “Final Jeopardy”).

The four major classifications are Serif, Sans Serif, Script and Monospaced.

Serif
In typography, serifs are non-structural details on the ends of some of the strokes that make up letters and symbols. A font that has serifs is called a serif font. Some typography sources refer to serif types as “Roman.”  In print, serif fonts are used for body text because they are easier to read than sans-serif fonts.  Examples of serif fonts are Times New Roman, Bookman, Garamond, New Century Schoolbook and Palatino.

Sans Serif
A sans serif typeface is one that does not have the small features called “serifs” at the end of strokes. The term comes from the French word sans, meaning “without”.  Some typography sources refer to sans serif typefaces as “Gothic.”  In print, sans-serif fonts are more typically used for headlines than for body text. Sans-serif fonts are used for shorter pieces of text and subject matter requiring a more casual feel than the formal look of serifed types. Examples of sans serif fonts are Helvetica, Arial, Avant Garde, Tahoma, and Verdana.

Script
Script typefaces simulate handwriting or calligraphy. They do not lend themselves to quantities of body text, as people find them harder to read than many serif and sans-serif typefaces; they are typically used for invitations or when a specific look or design is intended.  Examples of script fonts are Old English, Park Avenue, and Zaph Chancery.

Monospaced
These are fonts in which every character or letter is the same width (where the letter w is the same width as the letter i). The first monospaced typefaces were designed for typewriters, which could only move the same distance with each letter typed. Even they have outlived their usefullness, they can still be found on most any computer today.  Examples of monospaced fonts are Courier and Monaco.

But wait, there’s more!!  Within each typeface classification there are different families; light, regular, semibold, bold, black, condensed, extended and italic.  If you add all that up, that makes for several hundred combinations from big to small, from light and airy to bold and heavy—and that’s just one typeface!  If you take into consideration the thousands of different typefaces available today, it’s boggling to think of the number of combinations.

And that’s all there is to it.  Actually I hardly skimmed the surface but that’s all the time I have right now.  So, to wrap up this whirlwind tour of typography, here’s a little tidbit of trivia, it’s a sentence that uses all of the alphabet (a pangram) and is often used as a design aesthetic tool to demonstrate the personality of a typeface’s characters. The most common one is:  “The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog”.  Go ahead and count, A to Z, all the letters are there.